UK investigates beef product supply chain

A horsemeat butcher shop in Paris ... across the channel, horse DNA has been found in beefburgers.
Photo: Reuters

by
James Meikle | Henry McDonald

Food standards watchdogs in Britain launched an urgent inquiry into beef produce after frozen burgers contaminated with horse and pig meat were identified in Irish tests, leading to four of the major supermarkets clearing their shelves.

The British and Irish governments, food watchdogs and companies involved began a pan-European investigation of supply chains for beefburger products found to contain equine and porcine DNA.

Prime Minister
David Cameron
told MPs the contamination, revealed by Irish authorities on Tuesday, was “a completely unacceptable state of affairs". He said that although investigations were now looking at the supply chains, “it is worth making the point that ultimately retailers have to be responsible for what they sell and where it has come from".

Supermarkets with contaminated products and a British processing plant in north Yorkshire have been given until Friday to come up with definitive information on what went wrong. The Food Standards Agency said on Wednesday that it would join local councils and its Irish counterpart to see whether legal action against companies involved was appropriate. The agency added that it would work with devolved rural affairs departments and local authorities on a nationwide study of “food authenticity" in processed meat products, but it gave no details.

Some companies took beef not implicated in the tests by Irish authorities off the shelves as a precaution as the meat industry sought to avert a consumer backlash such as those caused by BSE during the 1990s and the dioxin contamination of Irish pork in 2008. Although neither supermarket was implicated, Asda withdrew nine burger lines while it carried out checks on suppliers, and Sainsbury’s withdrew one line.

On Tuesday, the Irish investigation by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) found that Tesco, Lidl, Aldi and Iceland stocked beefburger lines contaminated by DNA from horses, although not all were sold in stores in England, Wales and Scotland. But all the firms also withdrew burgers in the UK.

Almost £300 million ($455.5 million) was wiped off the value of Tesco at one stage on Wednesday. Tests on one of its burgers in the Irish inquiry had suggested 29 per cent of the meat content was from horses.

The FSAI inquiry covered beefburgers processed at two plants in Ireland – Liffey Meats and Silvercrest Foods – and at Dalepak Hambleton in North Yorkshire, and analysed 27 beefburger products with best-before dates from last June to March 2014. Ten – 37 per cent – tested positive for horse DNA and 85 per cent were positive for pig DNA. The analysis found traces of horse DNA in batches of raw ingredients, including some imported from the Netherlands and Spain.

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A total of 31 beef meal products such as cottage pie and lasagne were tested, and 21 were found to be positive for pig DNA. All were negative for horse meat. Another 19 salami products were tested but showed no signs of horse DNA.

The FSA said causes of the Tesco burger contamination were likely to be different from other cases where contamination was “extremely low". It said checks for horse meat had not been conducted in the past because it did not pose a threat to health.

An academic warned on Wednesday that this lack of testing means consumers could have been unwittingly eating horsemeat “for years". Tim Lang, a professor of food policy at City University, London, told the Daily Telegraph: “For too long we have had light-touch regulation. The Food Standards Agency has to be institutionalised into taking a more critical approach."